Bright Eyes return to Dublin after 18 years

Bright Eyes will play Dublin's Vicar Street on September 4, marking their first Dublin show in 18 years.

The beloved band have just returned from a 9-year hiatus. Their last record as a group, The People's Key, was released in 2011, but the members have since remained active individually. And their influence has remained -- their heartfelt acoustic 'First Day of My Life' remains a cultural staple, amassing over 168 million streams on Spotify and having been re-imagined by the Mac Miller and Young Thug.

From frontman Conor Oberst's early 1995 recordings up until 2020, Bright Eyes' music tries to unravel the impossible tangles of dissent: personal and political, external and internal. It’s a study of the beauty in unsteadiness in all its forms – in a voice, beliefs, love, identity, and what fills up the spaces in-between. And in so many ways, it’s just about searching for a way through.

Bright Eyes’ expansive catalog has traversed genre, sound, and countless players; unpolished demos or fuzzy folk, electrified rock or country twang. The sharp songwriting and musicianship is all anchored in Bright Eyes’ singular ability to flip deep intimacy into something universal. For so many, for so long, listening to Bright Eyes has been like hearing yourself in someone else’s song – a moment of understanding or illumination, knowing you’re on the same team looking for a way to move through all this shit.

Revisit Hot Press' 2007 interview with Oberst here.

Tickets start at €37.5o and go on sale at 9am on Friday, February 21 via Selective Memory and Ticketmaster.